The Seattle Mariners won last night, 1-0, with their only run being a home run from catcher Cal Raleigh. They’ve certainly had others contribute on offense this season — All-Star outfielder Randy Arozarena in particular deserves a quick shout of late — but it sure feels like a 1-0 Mariners win with a Raleigh bomb sums things up for the contender at this juncture, no?
In fact, Raleigh is squarely within range of winning American League MVP even though Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge has been the overwhelming majority of the season.
He still is. Let’s look at the two and loop in a third to give an idea of how much they are lapping the field. On BetMGM, you’ll find:
There might actually be good value here on Raleigh.
The Mariners are five games behind the Astros in the AL West, but they are firmly in playoff position, holding down the second wild card in the AL. The overwhelming driver of their offense has been Raleigh. The Yankees right now are not leading their division and are only two games up on the Mariners. Couldn’t a decent number of voters justify a Raleigh vote by pointing out that he’s more important to the Mariners’ offense than Judge is to the Yankees’ offense while also noting that Raleigh at catcher plays a much more burdensome defensive position?
Raleigh will have to overcome a monster deficit in the triple-slash line.
Here’s a numbers comparison:
Judge: .346/.455/.714, 220 OPS+, 128 H, 24 2B, 2 3B, 36 HR, 82 RBI, 6 SB, 89 R, 7.0 bWAR, 7.2 fWAR
Raleigh: .256/.370/.619, 184 OPS+, 94 H, 16 2B, 0 3B, 39 HR, 84 RBI, 11 SB, 68 R, 5.0 bWAR, 6.2 fWAR
There are certainly areas in those stat lines where it looks like a blowout in Judge’s favor. We have to factor in Judge playing in a relatively friendly ballpark for hitters (though, to be clear, Yankee Stadium is actually slightly below-average for right-handed hitters like him) while Raleigh plays home games in the most pitcher-friendly yard in the league. OPS+ accounts for ballpark environment and Judge still has Raleigh there by nearly 40 points. If you prefer wRC+ instead, Judge leads Raleigh 211 to 172.
We shouldn’t discount Raleigh’s candidacy for a few reasons, though.
First off, watch Raleigh’s home run total. He’s on pace for 63 home runs. And while I’m well aware that he’s started at designated hitter 24 times, he’s still started behind the plate wearing the so-called “tools of ignorance” — we’ll save the topic of that baseball oxymoron for another day — 76 times. That means he’s a catcher. And no catcher has ever hit more than 48 home runs in a season (Salvador Perez, 2021). There have only been eight catcher seasons of 40+ home runs before and Raleigh is one away on July 23.
Let’s say Raleigh hits 60 home runs and the Mariners make the playoffs — still an important distinction for some voters.
To see a catcher get to that plateau would drive such a strong narrative that it could sway a voting body. Further, while I don’t necessarily think we’re there with Judge (or Shohei Ohtani yet, for that matter), there is a such thing as voter fatigue. It’s human nature to get subconsciously tired of voting for the same guy. Judge won the 2022 and 2024 AL MVPs and it’s possible that this weighs internally for some voters. It might not. But it’s worth a thought. The BBWAA tries to combat this by having voters change which awards they vote on from year to year, but everyone still knows Judge has won two of the last three MVPs.
Now, some might claim New York vs. Seattle is an advantage for Judge and that’s entirely possible. But keep in mind that the BBWAA also ensures that every chapter gets exactly two voters for each award, meaning there are two New York voters, two Boston voters, two Seattle voters and two Sacramento voters, etc. There might be a lot more media coverage on Judge, but the voting body has just as much Seattle and AL West representation.
Further, take a look at what is surrounding each slugger. Raleigh, again, has 39 home runs. Second on the Mariners is Arozarena with 18 and he just finished a stretch where he hit 10 in 14 games. Julio Rodríguez’s 51 RBI are second to Raleigh’s 84. The Mariners have scored 468 runs as a team and Raleigh has 152 RBI+plus+runs. The point is simply that the Mariners are very, very reliant on Raleigh’s offense and down the stretch I could see arguments that it is more extreme than the Bronx Bombers’ reliance on Judge.
Of course, the Yankees have scored 526 runs with Judge accounting for 171 RBI+plus+runs. That comes out to 32.5%… the exact same percentage as Raleigh. Now, we shouldn’t make any judgements based on this and it’s arguable that I shouldn’t have even done the math because there are so many external factors on runs and RBI. I just thought it was funny.
This entire column is all one big way to say that I do not think this race is over. Even without a Judge injury, there’s an opening for Raleigh.
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